Suspension of Disbelief
by Basil Allegri
Summary: Really, because all John wanted was a relaxing hour in front of the television. Or, in which the author is skeptical of stories where Sherlock watches films.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock**

 **Author's Note - I've read multiple fan fictions where people have Sherlock mocking films (which he would do), but I honestly believe the plot is the last thing either he or Mycroft would think about.**

* * *

John turned to stare at his flatmate, who had remained unmoving next to him on the sofa for three whole minutes.

"What?" Sherlock spat grumpily, curled into his dressing robe.

John shook his head. "It's just, in the two months I've known you, this is the first time I've ever seen you sit down to watch television."

"I'm bored," Sherlock declared.

John rolled his eyes. Yes, that was a given. "Do you want me to change the channel to something more dramatic?" he asked patiently. It wasn't like he was particularly involved in the game show.

"No, this is fine," Sherlock said, sounding grim as he stared at the screen.

John raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really? Because I'm pretty sure there's an action movie that-"

"No," Sherlock said firmly. "Absolutely not."

"This has no blood or murderers," John pointed out. "It's a game show."

"Perfect – reality television."

"Crap telly," John corrected dully.

Sherlock smirked. "You're watching it," he said.

"Exactly. When I want to think about absolutely nothing, this is what I watch," John said pointedly. Today he had diagnosed two people with melanoma, given four screaming children shots, and had dealt with the most disagreeable old man he'd ever come across. And then to top it all off, one of his best nurses had quit.

He wasn't in the mood to think.

"How quaint," Sherlock drawled. "Must be quite a sensation, not thinking."

"Try it sometime," John said, refusing take the insult.

"Don't be an idiot, I'm far too intelligent," Sherlock said with a long-suffering tone.

"The man in the green will win," the consulting detective added off-handedly. "The rest are complete imbeciles."

John grabbed the larger of the two remotes from the coffee table. He'd gone a long way to protect them from Sherlock's experiments until now. "You know, let's change it to something more stimulating, then, eh?" he said, aiming the remote at the television.

Base music and gun shots emerged from the television in a shock wave, sending John scrambling to lower the volume.

"I don't want to watch this, John," Sherlock insisted, straightening his spine and glaring at his flatmate.

"I don't want to spend the next thirty minutes with you blurting out insults at humanity's intelligence," John said, moving his arm away as Sherlock swiped at the remote.

"This monstrosity of cinematography makes the task even simpler," Sherlock sneered, making another pass for the controller.

"Sherlock..." John grumbled, stuffing the remote between couch cushions, but he was too slow and Sherlock had the controller in his hands before the doctor could consider punching him away. "Don't break it," he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Case in point," Sherlock stated matter-of-factly, waving the remote at the glowing screen and ignoring his flatmate. "First of all, they should have fired the make-up artist who was in charge of the wounds – they're abhorrently unrealistic," Sherlock drawled.

"It's a movie, Sherlock," John sighed.

"You're a doctor," Sherlock reminded him needlessly. "Why doesn't this bother _you_?"

"They've done a pretty bang-up job with the rest of the movie," John defended. Sherlock snorted with derision. John sighed. "I don't expect them to do everything perfectly, Sherlock. They're artists, not medics."

"More than apparent," Sherlock said, glaring at the telly. "They're obviously not scientists either. The explosions are all wrong, the physics are all wrong, the probability factors are ridiculously skewed – seriously, how is it even remotely realistic to have the protagonist go through all that and only come out with a slight cut on his cheek? A cut that would be more conducive to that caused by a flying wood chip than a piece of glass, no less."

John squinted at the screen.

"That's ridiculous. It's so far away that even you shouldn't be able to tell _shape_ the cut is," John argued, staring at the lead character, who was currently crouched under the cover of a desk as bullets and shrapnel raged around him.

"There was a close-up at one point," Sherlock said dismissively.

John rolled his eyes.

"It's called suspension of disbelief, Sherlock," the doctor said tiredly, arms folded.

Sherlock snorted, "It's called lying to yourself."

"Right," John drawled.

As the angle changed, Sherlock suddenly sat forward in his seat.

"Look at the actor on the left," Sherlock ordered, jamming the pause button on the remote control. "He's recently been on a fifteen-minute break – just long enough use the men's room and have a coffee with an overdose of sugar. He's been trying to cut back on the sweets because his doctor has warned him of impending diabetes, but the past few days have been stressful for him, probably because of the affair he's having with whoever's standing just to the right of the camera. All I can tell about her is that she's tall with dark hair and has a penchant for wearing far too much makeup."

John made a face, "You do this during films?" he asked.

Sherlock threw his hands in the air, "Pay attention, John. Unlike the rest of dull humanity, I do not have the ability to turn off my brain."

John blinked. "All right," he said slowly. "Then, what about him?" He pointed to a dying extra in the background.

Sherlock sighed. "I'd have thought it was obvious."

John frowned. "Sherlock, you know I can't see what you see," he said wearily.

"All you have to do is _observe_ ," the detective insisted.

"Sherlock," John warned.

Sherlock rolled his eyes, but couldn't resist the chance to show off. "He's recently been switched with the extra to the right because they learned that the other man wasn't as ambidextrous as the part requires. You can tell because his reaction times haven't been quite on par with the others; he hasn't had as much time to practice. Plus, the man he switched with," Sherlock pointed to an enemy fighter in mid-jump over a couple of dead bodies, "keeps reaching for a gun with his left hand because he's been programmed to do it for so long."

John's eyes flashed with the familiar interest that usually came up whenever Sherlock was deducing people.

"You can tell he's a smoker – recently started – and works out at the gym that he's installed in his garage for a minimum of three hours a day," Sherlock finished, head tilted to the side. "Single – no spouse or girlfriend."

John let out a small laugh of disbelief. "Was there ever a time when you could watch movies normally?" he asked.

Sherlock's head turned to face him. "When I was a child I would watch cartoons occasionally," he said with a surprising amount of honesty. "But I stopped because the plots were unbearably predictable."

"Yes, they would be," John said with a slight smile.

"Suspend my disbelief," Sherlock said with a snort, and changed the channel back to the game show.


End file.
